Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Crowdsourced vs. Actual Contract Values
2. Video: Cuadrangular de Evan Gattis
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Venezuelan Winter League

Crowdsourced vs. Actual Contract Values
Before the end of the season, FanGraphs asked readers to project what sort of contracts the league’s free agents would receive, both in terms of years (Yrs) and average annual value (AAV). Now, in mid-December, many of those same free agents have received actual, real-live contracts.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. News Information: Tampa Bay Acquires Belnome in Trade
2. Other News Information: Cubs Sign Korean Closer Lim, Seems Like
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Australian Baseball League

News Information: Tampa Bay Acquires Belnome in Trade
Tampa Bay traded left-handed reliever Chris Rearick, 25, on Thursday to San Diego in exchange for mostly infield-type and 24-year-old Vince Belnome, reports Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times. A brief inspection of Rearick’s player page here at the site reveals that his numbers are rather interesting (including an 85:23 K:BB, for example, in 70.0 IP this past season), but that both his first and last names are of a decidedly less Mediterranean extraction than the Rays’ new acquisition. Slightly further inspection reveals that Belnome received a rather optimistic hitting projection courtesy ZiPS last offseason (although never made it to the majors). Bated breath, is the thing with which the author is awaiting Belnome’s 2013 projections.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. GIF Explosion: Three of Trevor Bauer’s “Reverse Sliders”
2. Information: Top Mexican Pacific League Reliever, Mike Benacka
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Mexican Pacific League

GIF Explosion: Three of Trevor Bauer’s “Reverse Sliders”
Right-hander Trevor Bauer was traded from Arizona to Cleveland on Tuesday as part of a three-team deal that sent, among others, Shin-Soo Choo to the Reds and Drew Stubbs to the Indians. Among his repertoire is an excellent curveball — notable examples of which pitch the author examined yesterday in these pages.

Also among Bauer’s repertoire is something known as a “reverse slider” — a pitch not entirely dissimilar to a changeup, except also different than a changeup. Below are three notable examples of that pitch (probably) from his (i.e. Bauer’s) first four major-league starts — where “notable” is determined by a combination of (a) result, (b) movement, (c) strength of opponent, (d) camera angle, and (e) the author’s infallible aesthetic judgment.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Very Assorted Notes
2. Rankings of GIFs: Trevor Bauer’s Best Three Curves So Far
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Puerto Rican League

Very Assorted Notes
Spring Training Schedules Available
Organizations — like the Yankees on Tuesday afternoon, for example — have begun releasing their spring-training schedules over the past week-plus. Both the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues begin play around the 22nd or 23rd of February, it appears — a little earlier than usual, owing to World Baseball Classic play scheduled for this spring.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Very Assorted Headlines
2. Largely Unhelpful Video: Cubs Prospect Nelson Perez, Homering
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Dominican Winter League

Very Assorted Headlines
Detroit Signs Catcher Brayan Pena
The American League champion Detroit Tigers signed catcher Brayan Pena on Monday to a one-year deal “likely to be worth less than $1 million,” reports Tony Paul of the Detroit News. Pena, who was originally signed by Atlanta in 2000, played for Kansas City over the last four years, posting something like 0.5 WAR in a little over 800 plate appearances.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Baseball’s Best Unaffiliated Hitter: Probably Chris Nowak
2. Only Slightly Shaky Video: Chris Nowak This Summer
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Venezuelan Winter League

Baseball’s Best Unaffiliated Hitter: Probably Chris Nowak
In the absence of actual empirical data*, it wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable, I think, to suggest that the Atlantic League is among the most competitive of baseball’s independent leagues. Even less ridiculous, I think, would be to suggest that 29-year-old corner infield-type Chris Nowak was the best overall hitter in that same League by kinda a lot this past season.

*In the presence of said data, too, it turns out. Brian Cartwright, proprietor of the OLIVER projection system, informs me that the Atlantic League is No. 1 among all indy leagues “by a fair margin.”

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Custom Leaderboards: Nerd Stats for Every Rule 5 Pick
2. Largely Unhelpful Video: Houston Rule 5 Pick, Josh Fields
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Australian Baseball League

Custom Leaderboards: Nerd Stats for Every Rule 5 Pick
The Rule 5 draft took place Thursday morning, on the last day of the Winter Meetings in Nashville — results of which draft can be found by clicking this hyperlinked text.

Clicking on other hyperlinked texts will bring the reader to other, more different things — namely, in this case, to custom FanGraphs hitting and pitching leaderboards for all the players picked during the draft in question.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Insider Information from Anonymous Sources
2. Beautiful Photo from the Internet of Mexico
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Mexican Pacific League

Insider Information from Anonymous Sources
A source with knowledge of the situation reports that certain colleagues of the author (including, but not limited to, Dave Cameron and Eno Sarris and Jeff Sullivan) had the temerity after dinner on Wednesday night in Nashville to suggest that this edition of the Notes — which includes state-of-the-art and cutting-edge SCOUT batting and pitching leaderboards for the Mexican Pacific League — that this edition of the Notes would be something less than a great peak presiding mightily over the landscape of sporting journalism.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Three Notes Regarding the Puerto Rican League
2. Video: Johnny Monell Hitting Home Runs Enthusiastically
3. SCOUT Leaderboards: Puerto Rican League

Three Notes Regarding the Puerto Rican League
Javier Vazquez Debuts Again for First Time
As Peter Gammons reported last month would be the case, right-hander Javier Vazquez has started pitching for Ponce in the Puerto Rican League. As Peter Gammons likely didn’t report — because he’s not clairvoyant, I mean — is that Vazquez appears on this week’s edition of the SCOUT pitching leaderboards for the Puerto Rican League.

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Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Daily Notes.

1. Notes from the Day 1 at the Winter Meetings
2. Dominican Winter League-Leading Pitcher: Kyler Newby
3. Very Thorough Video: Oakland’s Kyler Newby
4. SCOUT Leaderboards: Dominican Winter League

Notes from Day 1 at the Winter Meetings
It’s been a matter of some debate within my own person how best to use these Notes to report on the Winter Meetings while I’m here in Nashville. Because, allow me to it very make clear, I do not have any sources who are close to any situations — unless, of course, the source is my colleague Jeff Sullivan and the situation is the volume and pitch of my other colleague Dave Cameron’s colossal snoring habit*.

*I think probably habit isn’t the precise word. Habit would seem to connote some agency. Also, though: I don’t know what the actual precise word is and likely no one cares.

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